WaPo: who better to discuss power production than our food-section contributor?

Ezra Klein is an idiot. A moron. A pencil-necked geek whose only qualification to do anything seems to be that leftists in New York and Washington think he writes cutesy, cutting-edge commentary.

Fair enough. If you care, you can now see his idiocy for yourself by clicking on this link, to a WaPo article entitled "Getting ready for a wave of coal-plant shutdowns."

In it Klein holds forth on the EPA's "flurry" of new rules on emissions from coal-fired powerplants. The electric power industry has claimed the new rules are so costly that one-fifth of all coal powerplants are too old to economically be modified to comply, and so they'll have to be shut down.

Since almost half of the nation’s electricity comes from coal, that means an instant loss of almost ten percent of generating capacity. But Klein says not to worry.

Also, complying with the rules on the remaining plants will cost utilities an estimated $129 billion. But since utilities are corporations that don't have to make a profit, they'll eat the extra cost, instead of passing it on to consumers in the form of higher electric bills.

Okay, that's a joke: Obviously the cost of complying with the new rules will be passed along to you as higher electric bills. Also there will probably be some lost jobs--but hardly enough to worry about with unemployment at 9.2%.

Klein calls on his engineering degree and his experience as an economics analyst for the electric power industry to reassure us that the power industry is crying wolf--there's really nothing to worry about, and the new rules will be risk-free to you.

Okay, that's another joke, as here's Ezra's C.V. in a nutshell, from the Post's website:

Ezra Klein writes an opinionated blog on economic policy, collapsing banks, cap and trade, health care reform and pretty much anything else.... Before coming to The Post, he was an associate editor at the American Prospect. Klein has appeared as a guest on CNN, MSNBC, NPR and C-SPAN....[He] will also be a regular contributor to The Post's Food section.

So let's see if I've got this right: A former associate editor at a leftist mag, with zero background in electric power or engineering, is given a forum in a reasonably influential paper to argue that contra to what the power industry is saying, new EPA rules forcing a shutdown of one-fifth of the coal-fired powerplants in the country will neither cut power production nor will it raise your electric bills.

Oh, wait. Now I see how he's had the brazenness to do this: The Congressional Research Service--allegedly a "non-partisan" outfit--has issued (wait for it) a report expressing skepticism.

Well okay, sparky, what's it say? Here's Klein's take:

The report notes that “there is a substantial amount of excess generation capacity at present,” caused by the recession and the boom in natural gas [power]plants.

So we've got "substantial" spare capacity...at present. But the present has this funny way of vaporizing into...the past. The actually relevant question is, will we have enough generating capacity five or six years from now? Because even Klein notes that the excess capacity he finds so reassuring has been "caused by the recession."

What happens when the recession eventually ends (which is what most of us expect to happen if Obama is defeated next year)? If a recovery soaks up all the spare capacity, we're on the verge of rolling blackouts.

At which point lefties like Klein will be squawking the loudest about the awful lack of planning on the part of utility executives--no doubt part of crafty plan to force higher electricity prices on the poor working stiff!

And the other part of Klein's "spare capacity" is due to powerplants fueled by natural gas. Oh yeah, very clean, fairly quick construction. But wait...I seem to remember back when Carter was president, natural gas was getting a bit short in supply, so the grabberment decreed that starting right then, no one could build any new gas-fired powerplants in the U.S.

The theory was that utilities can afford to buy all the costly gear needed to be able to use coal fairly cleanly, but steel mills and factories and homes mostly had to use natural gas. So if there was a gas shortfall, the grabberment didn't want to pit homeowners against powerplants in a bidding war for natural gas.

When you think about it, it seems like a good idea.

But the ban on gas-fired plants was eventually torpedoed by environmentalists. So now we'll have plenty of coal but fewer powerplants that use it, and much greater demand for natural gas. And if there's a shortage or supply disruption for gas, Washington will have to order electrical generation curtailed if homeowners are to avoid freezing.

What a great choice! That's some really great planning there.

And this is what passes for brilliance in Washington.